A Poetry Renaissance

Salt Publishing have a fascinating article on The Pathology of Poetry - the whole article talks about the Renaissance of British Poetry and how poetry is coming out of the drawing rooms and claiming its place alongside the Arts after a long spell of being bound and gagged by Academia. 'Poetry is sexy once again' yes siree...

'We are emerging from a period when published poetry has been the well-managed art of an isolated and notoriously small elite into a more expansive and deregulated market focused outwards towards its audience. Poetry (capital P) is, thank goodness, the product of its readerships and not its producers. In the recent past the art has divorced itself from greater dialogue with its audiences, and divorced itself from other cultural outputs: fiction, film and the visual arts, music and theatre (and thus much of our social experience) and the readership has largely reflected this split, shrinking in number until most events were attended only by the performer and an entourage of two (caretaker and administrator). Maybe innovation is always communal, but the renaissance in British poetry is certainly arising from poets reengaging with their communities, other art (and culture generally), and the resulting collisions of place, time and sensibility, politics and history are rewarding new readers. Poetry is sexy once again.'